"Signs You Are Receiving the Bare Minimum," states the cheerful pink square on my instagram explore page.

Scrolling further I find more pearls of precarious wisdom; “6 Signs of Fake Love,” “Early Signs You’re Not Meant to Be,” and “Signs He Will Never Change.”

It’s a bleak tapestry to wake up to but remember, personal algorithms tailor our social media feeds by monitoring our interactions.

This means for example; if you like a post about breadcrumbing, you’re going to see more posts about breadcrumbing; If you like a post about fuckboys, you’re going to see more posts about fuckboys; If you like a post about gaslighting, you’re going to see more posts about gaslighting.

You can see where my head’s been at.

Modern love isn’t easy, I’ve said this before.

But call it hot/cold/delulu or déjà vu - one thing is clear; Algorithmic anxiety isn’t helping.

It’s funny that we’ve started to call the intake of social media and the things we see/read online, “content consumption”.

It’s been on my mind, because lately I’ve found that this snack sized info is actually very hard to digest en masse and can give one a kind of stomach ache - of the brain.

To be more specific, I’m referring to the reams of romantic advice presented to me every day via instagram.

Explainer-grams and situationship memes are like ghastly canapés I don’t particularly want to eat but swallow anyway.

I flick through the "6 Signs of Fake Love," "Early Signs You're Not Meant to Be," and "Signs He Will Never Change."

Before I’ve even had a cup of tea I’m tanked up on narcissists, toxicity, anxious attachment styles, avoidant attachment styles, relationship patterns and breadcrumbing, which is not what I would call a healthy breakfast.

But insta-therapists and self proclaimed romantic guru’s thrive online because inevitably there are millions of people like me who are out there scrolling, screen-grabbing and repeatedly liking their content.

The term, ‘you are what you eat’, springs to mind.

Of course there are benefits to being aware of this technical dating lingo.

I recently Googled “How to annoy a narcissist,” and used the resulting advice to construct a text message which effectively made the recipient go bananas.

Who’s toxic now?

“Perhaps the language of mental health is burgeoning because actual mental health is declining” wrote Katy Walker in her 2021 New Yorker article The Rise of Therapy-Speak.

Over the summer in an act of desperation or perhaps to antidote my chronic romantic-doom scrolling I started reading The Secret, a Self Help book published in 2006 which teaches The Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction is a theory that posits whatever you focus on will expand in your life.

For example, if you focus on the fact that you are in debt rather than on finding ways to get out of it, you’re likely to remain in debt. Or, if you focus on the fact that you constantly find yourself in shit relationships rather than finding ways out of them, you are likely to remain in shit relationships.

As I grappled with this somewhat simple revelation I realised I was so focussed on what I didn’t want (breadcrumbing, gaslighting, inconsistency) I had lost complete focus of what I did want - connection, trust, actual romance.

And what’s more, my personal algorithm reminded me of this - every day.

By repeatedly liking and lolling at memes about fuckboys and red flags, had I in some ways normalised this type of behaviour and come to expect it?

Had those colourful square explainer-grams pulled me in so far that I had unwittingly become part of a sardonic heartbreak club? Was I turning into a relationship meme irl?

If we really are what we eat then we need to seriously rethink our digital diets.

You may be thinking, whelp, best delete instagram and take a digital detox. But simply taking yourself offline won’t solve anything because as I’m starting to realise, it doesn’t actually stop or start with your algorithm.

“In virtually every context, we cannot seem to rest until we find some intentional force either to fault for our misery or credit for our success”. writes Amanda Montell in her book, The Age of Magical Overthinking.

That being said, the concept of manifestation did actually remind me of something extremely important;

I am responsible.

I’m responsible for being clear about what I want.

I’m responsible for who I let into my body and who I let into my head.

I’m responsible for the stories I tell myself.

And, I’m responsible for the stories I partake in online.

While algorithms influence our behaviour, the power to change lies within our conscious choices.

The Law of Attraction is also commonly referred to as A Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a belief or expectation influences behaviours in a way that makes the prediction come true.

Going back to the topic of content consumption, ‘Your body is your temple’, right?

Well, so is your mind.

Detox your timeline. And your algorithmic feedback loop. And your real life perception of your relationship patterns.

Its Eat, Pray, Love, not Eat, Pray, Suffer.

My love life doesn’t have to be a meme. And neither does yours.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a support group for toxic relationships.

It used a format similar to Alcoholics Anonymous.

We sat in a circle, eight of us, revealing our names one by one.

“Hi, I’m Alice,”

“Hi Alice.”

“I’m recovering from a toxic relationship.”

I spoke for 3 minutes, looking at the shoes on peoples feet. They were all nice shoes. Not to say that this is a reflection of anyone’s sanity but it comforted me.

I felt myself in a warm bubble, like being in a fish tank.

Walking home I felt delirious. The loneliness was exacerbated. I had wanted to go into more detail - talk about how the sex felt like a drug to me - hopefully have other people agree / nod their heads - give me some pearls of advice that would save me.

This did not happen.

Friends said that I was brave for going, brave for speaking.

I felt braver for going back to dating.

Texting with a guy I met through work, a mild dopamine hit, small explosion after explosion safely contained within the shining screen of my phone (Ding!) Harmless surely. Like licking a salty rock.

“This is day 1,” they said.

In the group they spoke of prayers, passed a crumpled sheet of paper between us and asked us to read paragraphs out loud. My voice was small, hollow and echoed in the room;

“I am responsible,”

They offered me a crystal when I walked in, to mark my first meeting. I didn’t pause over the selection, just picked one, tucked it in a corner of my purse and haven’t seen it since.

“I want more,” The guy I met through work said, “When I see you with your shells, in your black dress.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

I returned to familiar rituals.

Went on Hinge declaring, “It’s cuffing season. Looking to get cuffed,” and met up with an artist who seemed to hate art.

That wasn’t attractive.

During his 4 hour cameo he insisted it was men that were “the fucking problem”.

Someone said “Your second? (Third?) Daddy reference?” regarding a joke in my profile about Michal Douglas.

My phone screen lights up and goes dark again.

Men with names like Courage - lol.

One read; “Non-monogamous but wants to have a nice and stable relationship.”

Ding!

A salty rock: Cold. Hard. Run it under water and it will taste of nothing.

We were gathered in an empty shop, the sounds of a punk band drifting through the walls, muffled, as if under water.

It was warm in there, slightly dusty. The faces I felt comfortable gazing into for a second were kind and looked back with knowing eyes.

The glug and trickle of hot tea being poured into mismatched cups made everything feel tangible. There was a plate of biscuits. Someone dropped their phone. A dog wandered between the chairs, claws tapping at the floorboards, its collar ringing like a bell.

A woman wanted to speak for the sake of speaking because she was not ready to share.

I listened. A voice that could have been in my head.

“Because she was curious. Because she wanted love.”

When it was my turn to speak I said something about a spiral, voice fading into nothing.

“Thank you, Alice.”

I think of the ocean. Seaweed, the wind, waves.

And beaches filled with soft, warm, salty rocks.

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“In Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire love and sex are often linked to suffering and sin.”

I read this online on my phone before boarding a train to Charlottenburg. I’m going to see Evil Flowers, a new exhibition at the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg Galerie which explores Baudelaire’s poem of the same name through various artworks, from the early modernist period to contemporary installations and objects.

I have not read Baudelaire before now but I have eagerly awaited this exhibition. I'm fresh out of a relationship and feeling reflective.

Beyond that, I’ve always enjoyed open-ended curations which are broad in their references and collections. It allows opportunities to discover unknown works and ideas. In recent years gallery visits have become somewhat of an anchor for me in terms of a weekend well spent, I suppose I’ve always felt this way but never really understood its importance until now. The silence of a museum is similar to a church, the collections themselves as precious as relics. There's a sense of discovery, introspection; it’s a ritual of sorts. On top of that, looking at the finished product an artist has created, many years ago mounted on a wall, I feel impressed at their ability to have completed something, to have finished anything at all.

The last few months writing became almost impossible for me.

I returned to Berlin after a 2 week trip to California at the end of September and could not start or finish a thing.

The only activity I found myself doing easily was continuing to see Chris. However miserable, happy, exhausted or busy I was, I could always make time for that. Perhaps it’s another story altogether, however, I do believe that eros and creativity are connected.

Charles Baudelaire was a French 19th-century writer, translator, poet and art critic. He is most famous for his poem Les Fleurs du Mal which is cited as one of the most influential works of poetry in Europe, though he never received recognition for his work in his time. Behind the beguiling title are themes of eroticism and intoxication, ennui and distraction, lust, death and decay which challenged the principles of the day and denounced the typical values of the oneness of the beautiful and the good.

In the opening poem, Baudelaire warns the reader of the perils of ennui which he considers to be the most insidious state of all because it drives people to seek distractions from their boredom through vice, excess and sin;

“The Devil holds the strings that move us, in repugnant things we discover charms.”

The title of the poem, Les Fleurs du Mal which translates to Evil Flowers or Flowers of Evil, can be interpreted in many ways. I personally see it as a reminder that not everything that appears beautiful is inherently good (and vice versa) and though the poems themselves contain few literal mentions of flowers, their presence in the title serve as a metaphor for beauty, poetry and artistic creation growing out of pain and suffering.

In the introductory texts, the exhibition does not promise to illustrate Baudelaire’s poetry, rather “shed light on various aspects of Baudelaire’s aesthetics, as well as its after and side effects.” Furthermore it is stated that the curation, “is not systematic and offers no take-home life lessons.” A small print, that leaves me pleasantly intrigued.

The first canvas that catches my attention is a painting of flowers in a vase by Kees van Dongen from 1910, entitled Blumen. The shapes are undoubtedly organic and floral though they are not painstakingly defined. A dark background and surface gives the impression that the flowers are lit somewhat unnaturally or by flash if it were a photograph. In the middle of the foliage is a single human eye. The square 1:1 frame, the same format as a post on instagram in combination with the inquisitive eye at the centre makes me think of the SoMe world and brings up the questions; In creating something are we always looking for a reaction? In posting something online are we always hoping it has been seen?

Before I started publishing on Substack, the majority of my confessional writing remained hidden but I found a new source of joy in sharing it online. Mostly because of the conversations that arose from the strangers that read it but also in the process of dissecting each experience as it unfolded. Eventually, each essay became a kind of mirror.

Is this what Van Dongen was communicating by adding the eye? That through our artworks, we can see our own reflections?

If that’s the case, it would make sense that when I stopped writing, I found I could no longer see myself.

Next comes a quote by Baudelaire, which resonates; “I have found the definition of beauty. It is something ardent and sad, something a bit vague that gives free rein to conjecture.”

Standing alone in the gallery, gazing at these words, I am reminded of my relationship with Chris.

I call it a relationship now, rather than a situationship because in all my recent studies of modern dating and neurotic dating language I have begun to tire of it.

Ardent (passionate, enthusiastic) it was, vague and sad also.

I was the one that gave free rein to conjecture.

I like the word ardent.

It masks careless pain slightly and sounds more intelligent.

But pain is transparent just like longing and as Les Fleurs du Mal demonstrates, anything can be considered beautiful depending on how you look at it.

Evidence of this is displayed on the gallery walls; flowers that are oddly sexualised with pulsing stamens and gorging blooms.

In the piece Bodies that Blossom the artist Fatoş Irwen adds human limbs to fabric printed with purple flowers, drawing similarities between floral and human forms and highlighting the cyclical nature of plants and foliage, life and death and romantic relationships for that matter.

But traditional love was not really a key topic for Baudelaire who focussed his poetry instead on the darker aspects of relationships such as lust, sex and obsession.

“The power of pure lust is depicted as a self confident woman.” Reads the inscription accompanying Pornokrates, the painting by Félicien Rops which hangs before me in a gilded frame.

Against a starry sky, a woman walks naked but for frills and ribbons which expedite her nakedness; she is blindfolded, holding a string attached to a pig. She strides a marble ledge in black knee socks and high heels over carvings of male figurines. Is she the male dream? And do the three floating cherubs in front of her symbolise her own sensuality, which she cannot see since her eyes are covered?

I can't help but notice the similarities between Pornokrates and the depictions of women seen online today. Though, in modern times - through subscription based platforms like OnlyFans and even Instagram - women can take back some semblance of power and ownership of their sexuality they are still led somewhat blindly by the gaze of despondent male fantasies.

Scrolling through the hundreds of photos I have sent in varying states of undress in my Whatsapp chat with Chris I arrive at the message he sent when he broke up with me; “Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best sexual relationship I’ve had in my life,”

But what of the lover?

She is passionate and wanting; She is alive and breathing and giving.

Nothing like the way Rops portrays women in Pornokrates, the way I displayed myself in those selfies or the way Baudelaire describes his mistress- “a pitiless demon, a silent urn where sorrows ashes lie, celebrating the lust that burns in boorish leers as she strides through the city streets.”

Could she have been like me?

He was beguiled by her fragrance, her flowing black hair, enough to be obsessed by her for 20 years but never exclusively.

Perhaps she wasn't enough for him or, perhaps he just wasn’t capable of mutual love.

At this point in the gallery I am presented with a different example of intoxication; a striking piece by Gerd Rohling entitled Peggy's Party, depicting wafts of brightly coloured paint clouds which demonstrate the dizzy slide into inebriation after the artist drank Campari. The vibrant bursts remind me of the tipping point of falling into a drunken stupor. The gentle clouds of mist are soft in shape but the colours powerful as an explosion, reminding me that whether drunk or in lust, it can be a hard state to recover from either way.

One of my favourite objects in the exhibition is called Residual Risk by Peter Bux; a fire extinguisher dropped into the sea and later retrieved by the artist whereupon it had become embossed in delicate ocean matter, barnacled and beautified with clams settled on its surface like petals.

What is the residual risk of my relationship with Chris, I wonder. What are the after effects? Have I also become encrusted? If so, in what? Fear? Confidence? Doubt? Memories?

Looking at my reflection in the glass cabinet I can see that I still look the same - it’s only the things around me that have changed; While lost in my distraction with Chris, I stopped writing, let go of my focus and clarity with some of my closest friends.

I wouldn’t go so far as Baudelaire to say the charms with which Chris kept me were repugnant (in hindsight, its perhaps the perfect word) but I can admit in modern terms, they were unhealthy.

So, in the throes of heartache induced ennui I took myself to an exhibition in Charlottenburg and looked at artworks.

That in combination with the abrupt end of my year-long distraction and 4 month creative hiatus I finally found words to write and here are around 1800 of them; another mirror to myself and those who might read them, another “side effect” of Charles Baudelaire's poem Les Fleurs du Mal and another example of something creative growing out of pain.

Though Baudelaire was somewhat adverse or incapable of the traditional course of love, he was what they call a Romantic. His work filled with reflections on the complexities of lust, creativity and dangerous distractions; As I have discovered, the themes are omnipresent.

At the end of the exhibition is a film of a large, glittering horse fly teetering at the lips of a Venus flytrap. The insect pauses, turning to display its delicate wings before taking a few fatal steps upon which it is consumed, trapped behind the needle-like teeth of the deadly flora. Recorded in 1922 and screened at an exhibition in Berlin in 2025, it is perhaps an allegory for the risks of desire fuelled folly or indeed, like any work of art or personal experience, whatever you choose to make of it.

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I recently changed the name of my complicated beau to TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC on my phone. 

This was to a) remind me of the obvious and b) because I was running out of rational ideas.

But why didn’t you block him? Said the frustrated and perhaps stronger, more self righteous than me.

I did block him.

Then I unblocked, blocked and unblocked him again. 

It seems silly to think that these decisive actions we make with our phones can solve problems in a couple of taps;

Lonely? Swipe right.

Fed up with it? Block.

At your actual wits end? Edit contacts name; SOS/ OH NO NOT AGAIN/ TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC.

Earlier this summer Chloe Caldwell wrote in Vogue that in matters of modern love, blocking someone has become a dating power move.

“There are millions of reasons to block someone: to maintain your peace, to win the argument, to have a boundary, to end a relationship, to ease the anxiety of waiting for someone to text back. But maybe the most appealing part of blocking is the (sometimes-false, often fleeting) sense of control it gives you.”

I can attest to the latter section of this statement, since I only blocked Chris when my feelings ran away with me.

I feel like there’s this scramble at the start of relationships to not fall first - whoever falls first gets hurt, whoever falls last retains the power. But what happens when you both fall at the same time and the situation still isn’t going anywhere?

If you are me, you try changing their name in your contact list.

Over the last 6 months I’ve called TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC many things; Crazy Chris, Chris Chris Chrisss, baby, v cute one. 

The last time I saw him I found myself saying “You suck,” while flinging his underwear across my bed. 

“I know,” He said.

At this point we were about three weeks past break up number 4 and one day before break up number 5.

The conversations we had about our relationship always seemed to end with “But we’ve said this all before,” followed by around a month of silence then a spontaneous and sweaty reunion.

I saw a post on instagram recently that said “Why didn’t Carrie’s friends just kill Big?”

This made me laugh. 

Why didn’t they?

Some days I wish for any other person to be in love with; the extremely cute barman at my local pub who thinks I like fresh orange juice in my Campari sodas, the tall blonde neighbour that lives downstairs, the guy from Hinge who is nice but wears chino’s. 

Of course changing Chris’s name did not stop me from replying to his midnight text or from having feelings for him. 

Did the impulsion to do it come from my head, my heart or my subconscious?

And who has the power now?

The word hopeless springs to mind. 

As you can maybe tell from my SATC reference earlier, like many I often turn to sardonic instagram accounts and pop culture to make sense of shitty situations. This is probably what prompted me to quote the movie Annie Hall during a recent therapy session.

“A relationship is like a shark,” I said confidently. “It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we’ve got on our hands is a dead shark.” 

My therapist asked me then if I had a cuddly toy which I could use to impart some of my misguided affection. I politely agreed this would be a good idea but refrained from telling her I had just bought a new vibrator. 

“I love you Chris,” I said in a Sunday text to TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC, the day of break up number 5. “Can’t do this anymore. Can we please just end it properly?”

“End it properly ok,” He said.

“Yes, I mean it,” I said. “I really do love you lots.” 

“Me too.”

Neither of us have any power in the situation it seems. 

And that’s the gamble isn’t it. 

You can learn all the lingo helpful in modern love, read articles and books about it, educate yourself as best you can on toxicity, red flags, green flags, blocking, unblocking, bread crumbing, love bombing but none of it really prepares you for battle. 

“You just have to let it run its course,” Said a particularly non judgemental friend. 

And let it run I did, for 6 months.   

I realised lately that in the four years I spent with my ex, I never blocked him once. 

But that was then and this is now. 

Love is a strong word that describes very strong feelings and there are lots of different kinds of love. 

Modern love is sending photos of yourself in a gold bikini, Modern love is kissing in the kitchen until dizzy, Modern love is breaking up and making up, Modern love is Marlboro Lights and Vogue Blues, Modern love is him telling you he likes it when you wear tight tops, Modern love is never going out for dinner together - not even once, Modern love is believing a text says more than it does, Modern love is smelling him in your bed, Modern love never seems to end, Modern love has no closure, Modern love is trying to stay sober, Modern love is hot and cold, Modern love is seeing your ex on the Ubahn, Modern love is feeling like you’ll never date again, Modern love is not a big deal, Modern love isn’t real, Modern love is blocked/unblocked, Modern love is not enough. 

“I miss it,” I told my therapist.

“Yes,” she said gently, “Now you have to grieve the shark.”

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After my last essay about a February fling, I received messages from far and wide; some in the form of voice notes from people I’ve never met; DM’s from friends of friends and emails from both women and men.  (This reminds me, if you like what you read here please share and comment below so that everyone can read your thoughts. It will really help grow my readership.)

Anyway, the general feedback referred to relative feelings of longing and desire, also the pitfalls of online dating and how exhausting it can be. 

Someone said the essay reminded them of the movie “Cat Person,” another asked if Chris’ real name was Fabio, and a writer in an open relationship asked me out for a drink saying, “I’ll think of somewhere with good Campari Sodas.” 

But the word that continuously popped up was, surprisingly, dopamine.

Dopamine, as we know, is a chemical reaction triggered in the brain by having any kind of novel experience - including things we enjoy; from eating chocolate to playing sports, using recreational drugs to dancing all night, scrolling social media to sex. 

I’m no scientist, (I’m an experimentalist) but I think I understand the connection between dating and dopamine.

Dating sets off dopamine bursts, especially in the early days.

I mean we all like having a crush; receiving texts along the lines of “Send nudes” at 6.30 in the morning can set a nice tone for the day. 

Dopamine is similar to adrenaline but while some people throw themselves out of planes to get a rush, I tend to romantically fixate on questionable men.

“You’re sweet,” I said to the writer in an open relationship when we went for Campari Sodas. 

“But you don’t like that, do you?” He said, referring to my February romance.

I tried to explain that it’s not that I don’t want a sweet man. 

The fact that he was sweet made no difference to what transpired/didn’t transpire between us that night, the dopamine levels were still moderately high.

I suppose at this moment in time, for me, fuckboys are just more exciting. 

And what or who is to blame?

Sometimes I think it could be due to the media I was consuming in my teenage years which glamorised fuckboy behaviour. I was obsessed with Marlon Brando’s character in A Streetcar Named Desire, I idolised Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and found myself pining over Dean Moriarty when I read On The Road. 

A darker perspective has me wondering if the origins of my penchant for unreliable men is based on a toxic relationship I experienced when I was 18. 

I get annoyed by people telling me to “Stop dating fuckboys.” There’s a special place in my heart for them and not all elements of them are bad; in fact there are many things they seem to do right. 

Maybe this is why it’s a hard cycle to break out of; once you have started down the fuckboy route it becomes familiar and without realising it you are drawn to the same traits. 

If it’s what you’re used to, there is safety in uncertainty, which in my case is supported by a habitual fear of weekly date nights to Pizza Express and matching slippers. 

Sam from the van.

When I first moved to Berlin I met a guy called Sam who I came to call Sam from the van. 

I was walking home from work after being in the city for only two weeks. I didn’t know a soul and was planning an exciting evening spent cleaning my bathroom. When he cycled past me, we locked eyes. I remember feeling exposed in the expression on my face but thought nothing of it, until he came back up behind me. 

We were neighbours, he said and would I like to get a drink that night?

I agreed and half way through cleaning my bathroom he texted me. A few minutes later we were walking with beers around the church behind my apartment. Here we are, he said when we arrived outside a large old Mercedes van. He opened the doors to a perfect, compact apartment complete with a hand painted oven. I was not phased by the van, after all it was vintage, immaculate and painted a soft caramel tone.

After we climbed in and he started to close the doors I protested but he told me he didn’t want anyone to see that he was living there. “If you feel scared,” he said while locking the heavy doors, “you can escape through here” and lifted up a hole in the floor. 

For some reason, I was reassured and we spent the evening dancing between his oven and the fold out dining table. 

Thereafter began a short but casual relationship. Sam was from Switzerland and wore a rolex with his initials embossed on it. Each time we parted, I didn’t know when I would see him again. Week by week I would see his van outside my apartment before hearing my buzzer go. He would come inside, spend time with me and use my bath. We talked about books because he wanted to know about the female authors I liked. He had long blonde hair which I enjoyed playing with. I remember one morning he was singing along to L’idole by Jacques Dutronc while we lay in bed. It lasted for 6 months. 

Sometime towards the end I received a voice note saying, “I’m long gone from Berlin, by the way. I don’t know what you think of me, maybe you think I’m a fuckboy but maybe you’re a fuckgirl too.”

He went on to say that he was happy he met me and that I helped him grow. 

I sat on my balcony replaying that message, realising that I didn't even know his second name. 

Maybe I am a fuckgirl

It’s hard dating at this point in time. We are exposed to so much information, so many different terms; Fuckboys, dopamine, toxicity etc. There are countless instagram accounts which urge you to delete and block if the guy you are dating doesn’t text back within 5 minutes. Dating seems to thrive on expectations and dopamine, the danger comes when we let our imagination fill in the gaps. 

“But can you have fuckgirls?” Chris (aka Crazy Chris) asked me recently as we discussed this piece. “Yes,” I told him.

A fuckboy, according to the Urban Dictionary, is a player; “A boy who plays with girls' feelings, doesn't really like them and would say anything a girl wants to hear to have sex with them or to get something they want. Fuckboys know what girls want to hear but they hurt so many girls. Once they are a fuckboy, they always will be a fuckboy. If you know a guy is a fuckboy, don’t fall for him.”

But is a fuckboy an urban myth? There is also an urban myth that dopamine is addictive but according to science, it’s not. 

Back in the day a fuckboy was known as a player or a cad.

Until Sam suggested to me that I could be a fuckgirl, it had never occurred to me.

Maybe fuckboys are just chronically unsure of what they want and I think as women we are predisposed to feeling used and inclined to use words like fuckboy because anatomically it feels as though we are always on the receiving end of our dates. 

But I think it is important to rephrase this or to look at it instead as choosing to take someone in. Words like fuckboy contribute to the patriarchal narrative that women are damsels in distress.

In contemplating fuckgirls, at least we are placed on an even playing field. Women are allowed, believe it or not, to make their own choices.

Eyes wide open

There's a saying that every time you meet a stranger you meet a new side of yourself. I believe this. 

Amidst the giddy waves of dopamine dating, I refuse to judge my crushes or myself too harshly. I can’t consider myself used if I’m happily, blissfully aware of what I’m doing and why. Afterall, we’re all just trying to live.

If this makes me a fuckgirl, so be it. There’s an obsession in this society with romantic love, labels and lasting forever. But I love meeting different people and falling into an intoxicating rush. I love learning something new about myself each time.

I love that it could be a transient moment or it could last forever. 

And I love that I’m finally starting to realise, I’ll be just fine either way.

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This piece was edited by the brilliant .

I started calling him Crazy Chris after the second date. 

The first date was fine, it was spontaneous. We met at a bar called Macke Prinz which I like because it is dark and feels like you are in the under belly of an old ship. I drank Campari Soda and thought I might vomit before he arrived even though the room wasn’t swaying. I smoked Vogues; wore a transparent long sleeved top, ankle length black skirt and knee high DocMartens. 

We matched on Hinge, two nights before. 

Hinge is a dating app used widely here in Berlin but there is nothing special about it. You put up several photos, write witty captions or plant a voice message on your profile to lure in dates.

Humans are reduced to their random food preferences when at a loss for what to say and are defined by a liking for Szechuan noodles, Bánh mì or “A nice cold beer.”

Not to make fun; I wrote “cake” beneath my interests, well aware of how ridiculous it sounds but reluctant to reveal any more or play along despite being in the game from the moment I signed up.

At first I didn’t want to go back to dating. 

After a four year relationship every man I saw gave me the ick until the prospect of someone else started to give me the yum.

I signed up to Hinge and found dating at 36 wasn’t as dismal as I had imagined. After a couple of days there was a gentle tattoo artist who took me out for coffee and asked “When do you feel most attractive?” a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who never replied, then Chris. 

We hit it off in our initial chat through the app, messaging back and forth for several hours discussing our attraction to each other's pics, roast dinners, movies, work and turn ons. 

The first date was planned for Friday but we ended up meeting on Wednesday because Chris said he was in the area. It ended around 4am when he left my apartment after taking a surreptitious photo of me on the couch in my leggings under the guise of booking an Uber. 

We got on. He made me laugh, often interrupting when I was speaking to put his hand round my neck and kiss me. He was full of compliments which came as a welcome change. 

On our second date Chris chose the bar, somewhere in Rixdorf. I was late. He said he had met with his ex-girlfriend to pick up a book for me, it was called Conversations on Love. He told me about the secret photograph he had taken and showed it to me. He paid for all the drinks, booked a cab, bought a bottle of Prosecco and took me home. 

Back at his apartment he started to play music, snorted coke off his phone, became melancholic and then took coke again by which point I wanted to go to bed. 

That night as we got to know each other, we did not sleep. At one point he said he might be falling in love with me. I turned over and texted a friend, telling her that he was on coke and to please remind me in the morning. Twisted in his soft white bed sheets I worried I was rolling in a red flag. 

A few days passed and my concerns calmed down, he seemed more docile. We went to the cinema and spent another night at mine. 

Over the next week he asked for pictures of what I was wearing; I liked this. 

I also liked that he wore silver rings in both his ears and the same fragrance each time we met which smelt amazing and clung to my skin like his kisses.

Eager for more personal reminders I asked him to give me love bites which he did. One on my neck actually blistered, perhaps I was allergic to him. 

He told me he used to work in finance in London and after that I couldn’t stop thinking of him in a grey suit on Liverpool Street, smoking Marlboro Lights, wearing his thick gold rings; the trashy Saint Christopher tattoo hidden beneath his shirt sleeves. 

I am brilliant at making up stories about potential suitors, I’m sure there must be a clinical term for this, maybe delusion. 

Ask me what I thought of his silver hair and shaved chest and I’ll tell you; I loved it all. 

There were parts of him which I did find perfect. I have videos of these on my phone, illuminated by the dim light of his laptop. 

It was a welcome distraction, we said. 

There are memes about online dating in Berlin. Perhaps this whole essay is a meme or perhaps I am? 

A dating caricature; big hair, big boobs, smudged red lipstick, 36, single; 70% Carrie Bradshaw, 15% Bridget Jones, 15% Virginia Woolf.

Though I was enjoying him immensely I still couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe something wasn’t right; the coke freaked me out, communication was inconsistent, the initial flattery and declarations of desire were tailing off. I found myself online reading about narcissistic behaviour, love bombing, red flags and psychopaths. I couldn’t tell if it was he or I who planted this seed. I was the one that called him crazy but he was the one who behaved erratically. It was hard to see the wood for the trees because he was from Northern Ireland and everything he said sounded nice, even when it was rude.

One Sunday we planned to cook dinner together at my place and make a roast as discussed in our first conversation. We played a card game while we cooked called “We’re Not Really Strangers” which is designed to help people connect on a deeper level. 

When the chicken was ready I unceremoniously dropped it on the kitchen floor. 

After dusting the chicken off, dinner continued. We went to the bedroom and when Chris lay down my vintage bamboo bed collapsed. We had to remove the mattress and put it back together. I fell asleep laughing.

We had one more romantic encounter before we ended. He arrived at 2am, missing the friends that I had visiting from England. 

In the morning he asked me to watch him shower which I did, wondering what that was about. He did not want to watch when I took a bath but relented after some persuasion and faltered in the bathroom with the door wide open. 

In the days that followed I lost my voice, found myself irritated by all of the above and ended up copy and pasting our Whatsapp conversations into ChatGPT to try and shed some light on the matter. “Alice frequently initiates conversation and asks how Chris is doing” ChatGPT replied. “Chris occasionally initiates conversion and occasionally asks after Alice’s well being”. 

A robot knew better than I did and I’m a poet. 

I ended it before I gave it a chance to get any better or worse. Then swiftly changed my mind, upon which he ended it. Touché?

Chris came to meet me and said that he was worried we didn’t have anything in common apart from desire. He said he wasn’t sure he was ready for a relationship and wondered after all of it, if he was better off alone. We said goodbye with these thoughts still hanging in the sticky distance between us. 

These days everything I read about dating begs the question how do you leave it feeling empowered? But I think power is not the question, it’s more about keeping the high. I thought he got me high but actually I got myself high on the idea of him. Deciding whether to retain that feeling is a choice within my control. 

There's this joke going around that you are humbled by your Hinge proposals but I made the first move so I guess I am humbled by myself.

There's peace in that. 

Chris was not crazy, he was in fact perfectly normal.

But he did make me feel undone and gorgeous. 

I enjoyed it. 

I didn’t even feel like eating after my breakup, until I met him. Then I became incredibly hungry.

There were two bottles of wine involved; the first the night I ended it, the second the day Chris did. Both were finished by me but we drank each other's fill. A month can be long and short, February was both.

Occasionally I still check to see if he is texting me. 

He isn’t; this is reality after all.

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Hydromancy is an ancient method of divination by means of water. Also known as Scrying, it can range from the reading of reflections to interpreting the movement of floating objects to observing the ripples from pebbles dropped into a pool.

The washing machine broke a few days after he left me. 

It took its place in a long line of problems that evolved mostly around things dripping; the radiator in the living room, the bathroom sink, the dishwasher.

Clothing piled up in bundles - his on the floor of the spare room, mine on the floor of the bedroom. 

Separate laundry, separate problems, separate lives. 

Drip, drip, drip.

I called my Mother and told her about my weeping appliances 

“That’s your emotions,” She said “Water is about emotions.”

It was ironic, given that the washing machine had stopped and I was the one left spinning.

Astrology is the practice of forecasting earthly and human events through the careful study of the Sun, the Moon and the Planets. Horoscopes have been published for the masses since 1827. A practitioner of Astrology is commonly referred to as an Astrologer.

According to my Google search, as well as being associated with emotions, symbolically water is also related to change, femininity, fluidity, healing and the moon. 

I had been thinking about the moon in the days leading to the break up.

It was September and my newsfeed seemed inundated with talk of the Autumn Equinox, planetary transitions and more specifically the upcoming Super Moon. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, a Super Moon is essentially a larger-than-usual Full Moon, appearing so due to its closest proximity to Earth.

For Astrologers and those who follow the lunar cycle, a Super Moon is said to be even more powerful than a Full Moon. This 'Super' aspect particularly appealed to me because for several months, I had been feeling rather flat.

As well as reading my horoscope (which suggested that the Full Moon is a great time to let go of things that no longer serve you), I read an article entitled Full Moon Rituals and Spells; 8 easy ways to harness the magic and use it to your benefit. 

Listed there were 8 steps which, on the eve of the Super Moon I carried out with precision;

Take a full moon bath

Clean and organise your home

Perform a releasing ceremony

Place your crystals in the moonlight

Visualisation meditation

Cleanse your home and bring in new energy

Tie up loose ends and relax

Sing dance and play

The next day, my boyfriend of 4 years left me.

Crystal Gazing involves dropping into a trance like state which induces visions within a static object such as a crystal ball. Some practitioners claim that Crystal Gazing produces supernatural insight, while others assert that the visions arise from the subconscious mind.

I’ve heard that when the moon is full, its light is so bright you can see things you wouldn’t ordinarily see in the dark.

This became a stark reality when the next day, I found myself sitting alone on a concrete ledge beneath the golden chestnut trees of central Berlin.

I had looked into my own future many times (inside my head, as opposed to the pellucid depths of a crystal ball) and this reality was a version that I had admittedly foreseen but was doing my best to avoid.

It had been bold of me to partake in a moon ritual on a whim. 

Though I knew a little about the cycle of the moon and how to incorporate it into practical everyday decisions such as haircuts and gardening I think I underestimated the impact such a ritual could have on my life or more importantly, why I had chosen to partake in a “letting go” ritual in the first place.

Palmistry is the practice of fortune-telling through the study of the palm. Palm Reading involves interpreting the naturally formed lines on a person's palm and within them finding indicators of future events concerning the person being read for. 

About a month before the Super Moon, I booked a consultation with a Palm Reader. 

She asked for photos of my hands which I took on my iphone and sent via email.

We met on Zoom. 

I was nervous. 

My 4 year relationship was unstable and I had no idea if she was going to forecast something traumatic, which she did; She told me that my current boyfriend would probably be my life partner and that we would have 2 children.

Over the coming weeks, the prediction came as a relief because amidst the continuous waves of relationship doubt it gave me something positive to cling on to. But when it became apparent that this version of my future was completely off the cards, I could not forget what she said. This, on top of the gut-wrenching pain, caused some additional panic.

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of Cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were introduced into Europe in the 14th century. Practitioners of Cartomancy are generally known as Card Readers or simply Readers.

All that being said, I’m no stranger to dabbling in the divine.

During my twenties my Mother, Sister and I would frequently read Oracle cards together. 

Oracle cards are simple, fast and sold in mainstream bookshops with pamphlets that clearly translate the card's meanings. 

I was unlucky in love then. My dates were abundant but one in the same; well dressed, fascinating, full of empty promise. 

I would frequently pull the snake, which in the deck we used translated as ‘Somebody charming but unreliable’.

I eventually stopped reading the cards because they spooked me and seemed to taint all my potential suitors.

Nevertheless,  I continued dating snakes without much thought on the matter.

Hannah Graves aka @cultmother is a Tarot Professional based in Belfast. Hannah has been practising Tarot for 7 years and teaches the art as well as giving private readings in person and online. Tarot reading is a form of divination using a deck of 78 cards divided into what’s known as the Major and Minor Arcana. Tarot Readers interpret card meanings in specific spreads to provide insights into past, present, and future events.

When life gives you Super Moons and you recklessly perform an ill fated ritual the best thing to do is consult a Witch. 

So, that's exactly what I did next.

Hannah, should I refer to you as a Witch in my essay?

Absolutely, I identify quite openly as a Witch. 

What does being a Witch mean to you?

It’s always been for me the idea of somebody who moves on the fringes of society, that is maybe marginalised a little bit but who has inherent knowledge or wisdom when it comes to healing, connection with the earth and community. For me, anybody who is rebellious, who kind of pushes against the status quo and is willing to seek their own meaning in their own tools is someone who would probably fit quite well under the mantle, Witch.

Is magic making a comeback in modern daily life or has it always been there? 

It’s always been there. It’s one thing that’s really important for me to remember because I sometimes worry that the bubble is going to burst and it’s not going to be trendy anymore. It’s always been there because of peoples intrinsic need to seek meaning and understanding. 

What is Tarot?

Tarot provides us with a framework for exploration in developing self awareness, insight and intuition. 

Do people come to you with an expectation that you are going to be able to read their future?

I’ve always said, I’m not a Fortune Teller. That’s not to do any disservice to people who actively work, thrive and do meaningful work as Fortune Tellers but for me the real reason why I can’t tell you the future is because I don’t believe that it’s set in stone. I think that everyone is the architect of their own destiny. You make choices and you and you make decisions. And what we would do with this practice is equip someone with as many different insights or perspectives as they need to feel empowered in making their own choices and their own decisions. 

Can we talk about my super moon ritual please?

Yes please Alice.

It was the Super Moon in September. I was seeing a lot of stuff about the Super Moon online and I found an article called “Full Moon Rituals and Spells; 8 Easy Ways to harness the magic of the Full Moon and use it to your benefit”. I just wanted to do it. I said to myself ‘I’m going to do everything on that list on the eve of the Super Moon.” I was at a crossroad in my relationship, things hadn’t been right since my boyfriend had moved in with me almost one year before. We slipped into a codependent existence which began with romantic walks to cemeteries and adventures on frozen lakes and ended with arguments about cleaning, evenings spent indoors drinking and a feeling of no longer understanding one another. But on that day I wasn’t thinking about my relationship, I was just hoping for some clarity in terms of moving forward in my life. So as per the 8 steps, I had a Full Moon bath. I cleaned my house from top to bottom and opened all the windows. I performed a releasing ceremony where I wrote down a list of all the things I wanted to release from my life including “Anger with Paul” I then burnt the list and threw the ashes out the window. I placed all my crystals directly in the moonlight, including a rose quartz as big as my head. I did a visualisation meditation where I imagined myself being happy in the future. I went through the house with Palo Santo, starting at the back, all the way to the front with special focus on the front door. I went out for a drink in a red silk jumpsuit and then I danced in my bedroom. The next morning, he left me. 

Was it moon magic or was it a manifestation of my subconscious? 

I’m going to say that the most important thing for me in the way that I work is that actually it’s not important what I think. Because it’s about intentionality and you didn’t do a releasing ritual with the intention of breaking up with him or him leaving. So you weren’t deliberately trying to manifest that but I do think it’s interesting that sometimes when we focus on something like releasing the anger the Universe goes “Loud and clear!” I’m sure more serious Witches than me would say maybe there's a footnote here in terms making sure that you're bringing real clarity to your intentions. But I wouldn’t. You know what one of my favourite motto’s is at the moment Alice? 

What?

It’s just not that deep. It’s probably not that deep! What I’m living for is the image of you, having that time for you. Separate from everything that was happening between you two and honestly just the image of you in a red jumpsuit, going out for a good time and then dancing around your apartment under the energy of a Super Moon. That’s more the thing I would want to focus on regardless of what happened the following day and whether or not you are with this person or not. Like are you a powerful Witch? Hell yeah. Do any of us really have the ability to shed things, remove things, adjust what it is that’s meant for us? I honestly don’t know but the belief our actions have consequences or the way the energy we move in is going to create ripple effects in our experience is as much as I lean into it. 

When I say it’s never that deep, don’t get me wrong, if I’d been through that experience I would be feeling all kinds of freaked out.

Your intention was to be in this ritual so you could optimise your awareness and now here you are, deep in this process of evaluating and analysing your role; what impacted, what didn't, what tools might be beneficial, what might not. So it's just continuing to evolve for you.  

Oneiromancy, prophetic divination from dreams, is considered a divine act in most ancient cultures and survived to modern times in certain folk traditions. Oneiromancy is based on the belief that dreams are messages sent to the soul by gods or the dead, most often as warnings.

Shortly after my palm reading I had a dream that my boyfriend and I were due to take a flight somewhere new. In the dream, the plane looked unstable and we decided to drive instead. From the road we saw the plane falling from the sky and bursting into flames. I moved from the back seat of the car into the passenger seat and we continued our journey, leaving the smoking wreckage behind us. 

Divination is the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means. Often chosen by those looking for meaning or seeking answers, it can provide insight during life's challenges. It’s important to note that the perception of Witchcraft as fringe is often rooted in societies influenced by white supremacist ideologies. Ritual and prayer are all practices of mainstream religion, the most common examples being Christianity and Catholicism. Witchcraft, often associated with women, has been vilified and wrongfully punished throughout history. 

I performed a Super Moon ritual with the intention of finding clarity and direction and something that was causing me unhappiness promptly exited my orbit.

Whether or not Lunar magic is real, there is one thing I know for certain.

Approximately 14 days after the Full Moon comes a New Moon.

And with it, the rest of my life.

With my deepest gratitude for her wisdom, power of healing and love this essay is a tribute to my Mother, a Homoeopath who has spent her life helping people find answers others can't and White Witch by true name, Wanda Whiting. 

Heartfelt thanks to Hannah Graves @cultmother for giving me space for her amazing interview and to Claire Pollard, poet and author of Delphi who has inspired me since I started writing and from whom I borrowed the structure for this essay. Thanks also to the brilliant who edited this piece for me at last minute on a flight to Philadelphia.

1. I am seven years old, standing in a classroom at the back of the playground. They call this classroom The Hut on account of it being separate from the main school building. It’s raised up off the ground on a low platform. When I look out of the window I can see the hedge and beyond the hedge, the field. 

At the front of the classroom is a whiteboard. Beneath the whiteboard are trays full of stationary and stacks of paper.

I am next to the whiteboard, unclipping paperclips from a chain of paperclips and dropping them one by one into a big yellow pot, the same kind of pot that we use to clean our brushes when we are painting. 

Nathan Galloway stands opposite me and starts to also unclip paperclips. 

I tell him that I saw someone put a note in his drawer that morning. 

He stops unclipping the paperclips and his mouth drops open “Who?” He says.

I know then that he has found the small folded square of paper that I slipped into his desk. On the paper is the very neat outline of a heart. 

“Me.” I tell him.

Later, Nathan Galloway's friends tell me that I’m now his girlfriend. I decide to tell them that the note was actually from someone else, that I just delivered it. And after that, he’s not my boyfriend anymore. 

I don’t think I’m in love with Nathan Galloway. 

I just wanted to see what would happen. 

2. According to my Google searches, the heart shape didn’t become associated with love in the mainstream until the 15th century. 

In the mid 13th century French writer Thibaut wrote a passionate text accompanied by an illustration in which a man gives a woman a pear. Some Historians consider this to be the first depiction of a romantic heart symbol. 

Around 5 decades later, Giotto painted Charity handing Jesus what looks like an upside down pear or a human heart. In this image, the aorta is visible.

But the symbol of the heart as we know it is far from the shape of the heart biologically.

As hearts became popularised by the Church through religious art, the shape of the heart became more defined. A clean symmetrical edge with a pointed base, no longer comparable to an inverted pear. The colour, red. 

Valentine's day gained popularity in the 1700’s and this is when it became a tradition to exchange love notes adorned with heart symbols. 

Today, the heart symbol can replace the word for love. ‘I <3 you’ means I love you. A red heart icon or emoji is an expression of love, considered valid and used to convey genuine sentiment. 

3. Everyday I come home from school and log onto my parents computer to talk to my friends on Msn. I’m in high school. My screen name is little_red_star. I do not know that generally speaking, red stars are the global symbol of Communism even though I have an army bag with a red star on it. At this point, I just find certain things cool. I also like pretending to be a vegetarian, eyeliner, Hello Kitty and a band called The Killer Barbies. 

We have dial-up internet, I like the sound it makes when it connects. My parents friend’s can't call the house while I’m on the internet as the phone line will be engaged. I talk with my friends and send them animations of cartoon pandas rolling over and over on the spot. 

I receive an email from a boy named Connor who I often hang out with after school. I recall that he once sent an email to me and a girl whose email address was sexcgal69. I could see her email address at the top of the email, right next to mine.

The email he has sent is addressed only to little_red_star. 

When I open it there is an animation of a cute red monster opening and closing its mouth. The email says Happy Valentines Day, I eat hearts.

My own heart beats out of my chest.

I print the email and glue it inside my diary. 

I am positive that Connor loves me and I am not wrong. 

4.  “Because I cannot see you, my heart complains day and night.” This line from a love poem by Charles D’ Orleans was written around 1415. As hearts began to appear in the visual arts, they also began to appear within spoken and written word and now generations later, we have heavy hearts, light hearts, dark hearts and bleeding hearts. 

We have broken hearts, happy hearts, laughing hearts and golden hearts. 

We have good hearts, cold hearts, cruel hearts and young hearts. 

“Listen to your heart” usually printed and framed or emblazoned onto pillow covers has almost lost its true meaning but to put it simply, urges us to listen to our instincts or emotions rather than our common sense. 

“To pour your heart out” is to share your deepest feelings and emotions. 

“My heart skips a beat” when afraid, shocked or falling in love.

“I cross my heart” is a promise.

“Bless your heart” offers good sentiments or sympathy. 

“I know it by heart” is something you know so well you may have even memorised it. 

In 1978 Blondie sang “Heart of glass.”

“Nobody's heart is really good for much until it has been smashed to little bits” wrote poet Elizabeth Bishop in a letter to Loren MacIver in 1949.

5. I have reached my twenties, the days are dark and I feel like I will never be happy again. I’m at university in London, my hair is dyed red. I listen to Johnny Cash and June Carter on repeat. Eating makes me feel unwell and I have trouble getting out of bed. I cry and cry and cry. I have a dream that my heart is tied to yours with a piece of string. I love you so much. I love you so much I have to leave you. I have nightmares that you are chasing me down a long road and our hearts are joined by a glowing red thread that bleeds into the night. In my hands are a large pair of silver scissors and as I run I try to cut the thread between us. It’s as if the thread is made of wire. I cannot cut through it. When I look down, I see my heart open at my chest. I see the red thread coming out of it and trailing behind me, binding us together.

6. “Does the heart think before the brain?” This was listed in the Google related questions that came up when I typed “Can the heart think” which means that it has been asked by thousands of people, thousands of times since Google Search was officially launched in 1998.

We talk about the heart as if it is another brain and in my limited research on this subject it seems that there may be some truth to this. The brain and the heart communicate but the heart sends far more signals to the brain than the other way around.

In the fourth century B.C, the Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the heart as the most important organ in the body, the first to form according to his studies of chicken embryos. It was the centre of intelligence, movement and feeling. A hot organ with three chambers. Aristotle believed that other organs like the brain and lungs only existed to cool the heart down.

7. I’m in my early twenties, wearing a white apron with a cupcake on the front. I work in Primrose Bakery in Primrose Hill. I am frantic because I have spent the past evening with a boy who is not my boyfriend. Adele plays on the radio. I make cappuccinos and lattes, take orders for Birthday cakes and pack cupcakes into boxes which I close with pink ribbons. I leave the bakery in the middle of the day and call my Father. I tell him I have kissed someone who is not my boyfriend. He tells me that my secret has now become his secret and he will keep it in his heart for me forever. He tells me that I don’t ever need to tell anyone what I have done. 

8. Theoretically, one cannot buy a heart. But a heart can be repaired with valves from a dead pig or in other cases, with kindness and promise.

9. It is New Year's Day, I am in Japan walking around the grounds of a Buddhist Monastery. I feel out of place, I’m afraid I am pregnant. I didn’t bring enough clothes with me and I am cold. I am led into a Monastery by my boyfriend and his Mother. People are seated on the floor beneath the high vaulted ceiling, it is dark. Countless Monks in long robes are gathered, slowly beating drums in unison. No words are spoken and I feel as though the drums have fallen in time with the beat of my heart. My mind goes blank and the drum beats seem to speak to me. They summon one word which repeats rhythmically throughout my being; Forgive. 

10. In Yoga, teachers often refer to the heart space. There are certain exercises designed to “open up” the heart space. This practice allows personal interpretation and is not the only belief system that considers the heart to be divine.

11. I am 35. I use my own name as my email address and my hair is no longer dyed red. Me and my heart have had many experiences together and go to yoga regularly. Last week as I was sitting at my desk researching this essay, I received a message from a friend who told me that they were scared of the pain of leaving their partner. I replied on impulse that sometimes the thought of pain is worse than the pain itself.

My heart goes quiet then but I have a convincing sensation that it has just spoken through me and what’s more, remembers things that the rest of me has tried to forget.

Artwork by Glenn Whiting @whitingglenn

I’ve never been a fan of home stores.

There’s something artificial about them. 

I don’t like the fact that flat pack furniture, like a relationship, is basically ruined once it has been disassembled and is virtually impossible to move to a new place or put back together. 

I don’t like the generic prints and paintings on offer; the framed pink parrot illustrations, gilded mirrors nor the big green plants in terracotta pots. 

At first glance the shells arranged on the glass counters could tell a thousand stories but on closer inspection, they tell none at all.

Ikea relies on a “fixed path” design. 

This means that the layout of the store firmly steers its customers in one direction. 

Without having to think much people can navigate the showroom, marketplace and self-service warehouse smoothly until they reach the check out.

Despite my disdain for home stores, at the age of 30 I found myself in Ikea searching for a dining table, on a misled path of my own making. 

I met Will in 2016. 

We had our first date at the Barbican Conservatory. He bought me a red heart shaped balloon for Valentines Day, we went to Amsterdam and Budapest on weekend getaways and stayed in aspirational Airbnb’s with high ceilings and wooden floors. 

We moved in together after one year. 

In 2016 I was 28. Instagram was popular, getting married was not, unless you lived in the suburbs and the realities of living in London were dream crushing.

It was expensive and hard, it was not all it was cracked up to be. 

As an offspring of baby boomers, I grew up thinking I would be able to have a family and own a house by the time I was 30, like my parents.

But by this moment in time a different, sort of replacement lifestyle had overtaken that impossible ideal.

It was the done thing and felt far more pressing to post photographs on instagram of oneself standing in certain places wearing certain clothes. 

Columbia Road flower market, Franks Bar, Shoreditch High Street, Palm Vaults, Sketch.

It was a fickle but it came with presents, a counterpart to take your picture and hundreds of likes. 

After several years freelancing in the fashion industry I had landed my first corporate job at a generic online marketplace. 

Will and I worked for the same company. 

One of the job perks was a hefty discount on the high street clothing they sold. 

Since my meagre salary left little room for saving each month I just bought clothes. 

I bought skinny jeans, Converse and Calvin Klein underwear sets. I bought Adidas crop tops, embroidered bomber jackets and tight dresses. I bought Nike sliders, body suits and bikinis. 

I bleached my hair blonde and woke up every day at 5.30am to blow dry it straight while Will and I wore matching sneakers to the office. 

It was in the midst of this commercial fantasy that we decided to move in together.

The flat was small, with one bedroom and old carpets. It was in Zone 3 which by London travel card standards is expensive with time consuming commuting. 

Since I had all the clothes I could possibly want, my attention quickly turned to decorating the apartment. 

We bought a gigantic mirror and placed it in the hallway. 

A sofa next, which came in handy when we stopped sleeping together. 

But before that, I became fixated on buying a table. 

It would be made of wood, I imagined. Long enough for 8 people with benches on either side. We would sit at the table, making artwork together. I would be writing. The imaginary table meant so much to me. It was something I could actually afford to invest in. Something that could last forever.

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find it. 

Was I fixated on the long wooden table because my parents had one in their mortgaged home? Or was I defined by the products I had accumulated in my own environment? Since I had taken that corporate job, high street clothing started to take over my entire personality. I wanted everything that everyone else seemed to have. I wanted a boyfriend, a flat, a sofa and a table. I wanted to appear that I was living the right life even though I wasn’t.

Shortly before I met Will, I went on a date with a guy who owned a production company. I remember instantly liking the idea of him; The whale tattoo on his forearm, his big hands, nice trainers, six foot build, black beard and successful media job. As we sat together I noticed a gold pendant hanging from a chain around his neck, I reached out and took it in my fingers. It was engraved with the image of Virgin Mary but when I turned it over I saw that the piece of jewellery was branded, it was from Supreme. 

How disappointing and vapid I thought, before making out with him in an alleyway behind the pub. 

Sometimes it’s hard to separate what you want from what you need.

I did not need nor deeply desire any of the above. 

The table was merely an idea of something, as was my relationship with Will.

In the end I left him because I was unhappy. I left him because I didn’t like myself with him and I left him because I couldn’t buy a table with him. 

It took me a while to get over the initial shock of realising that I was not only unhappy in my relationship but my whole life.

The corporate world reminded me that you can’t buy happiness. Home stores provide easy and cheap solutions, high street clothes fall apart after one season and the lives we see on instagram are nothing but contrived snapshots which do not reflect reality in any way. 

True happiness is free.

Ikea relies on a “fixed path” design which theoretically works for everyone but fortunately life does not. 

There is always the possibility to change direction before you reach the check out.

Artwork by Glenn Whiting @whitingglenn

I grew up thinking “You can tell a good man by his breakfast.” 

It’s a ridiculous quote said by nobody, ever. I suppose I invented it. 

I don't mean to say that I’ve spent my entire life analysing men on the basis of what they eat for breakfast. (Although this too would be interesting - runny eggs equate to a terrible mistake etc.) 

Rather, my whole life I have been convinced that breakfast and love are connected.

I started early, falling in love and making my own breakfast.

Frying an egg was my first culinary experience. I learned slowly how to cook an egg in the right amount of oil or butter (I prefer butter.) Choosing the right pan so that it doesn’t stick. I learned how to cook an egg sunny side up or flip it.

The eggs served me well. I ate them in the morning before school, pressed between juicy bagels or like Anna Karina in French movies, on their own, half cold and straight from the plate. 

When I started to date, fried eggs were very much involved; During high school, I fell in love with a boy who worked in a Fish and Chip shop. In the mornings, I would grate us cheddar cheese on top of beans on top of a fried egg while listening to Greenday. In the evenings he would bring me bags of chips and battered sausages drenched in salt and vinegar. I couldn’t stand the sight of a banana. Grease and fried food nourished me. It was essential hormone fodder. If up late for school, half a packet of milk chocolate digestive biscuits dipped in milky tea would suffice. 

My moods were volatile, my skin oily, my heart and uncannily flat stomach - full. 

I never really liked it if boys cooked eggs for me. They were always too runny, too soft or smelt strange. 

The boys and the eggs.

In my twenties it was more intense. Breakfast making became par on par with dating. 

The issue here is that breakfast normally comes after you have spent the night with someone. I think dates should start in the morning. In the clean light of day. Not at night, when visions are blurred, desires heightened and orange juice is mixed with vodka. 

Once I dated an antiques dealer. He went out early one morning in his white van while I stayed alone in his wrought iron bed with striped sheets. He came back with a brown bag filled with mushrooms from a farmers market and a van full of cinema seats. He cooked scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms for me. I sat at the wooden table eating them with gusto. I was sold on him. The cinema seats, the wrought iron bed, the striped sheets, the wooden table, the mushrooms and the eggs.

Then he left me hungry.

In the days afterwards I ate cold, rotten strawberries from the fridge for breakfast. They tasted like old kisses (bitter, weak, watery.) No matter how bad I feel, I always eat breakfast. I was not raised to ignore an empty stomach.

Love is hungry work. 

I remember one terrible day, I was out eating breakfast with someone else’s boyfriend. 

She walked in and shouted at him over the cups of coffee, piles of toast and full English breakfast plates. When she walked out, he said he wasn’t hungry anymore.

I felt starved. Sick to my stomach on lies and grilled tomatoes. 

One boyfriend took me to Hawaii. I didn’t understand it. At the breakfast buffet I lost my mind. I couldn’t afford Hawaii. So during the free buffet I ate as much as I could, starting first with the yogurt and honey, then the American pancakes covered in syrup, then the eggs, bacon and waffles with more syrup. The days were morose. Hawaii was blue for me. I slept in a pink hotel dreaming of fruit and vegetables next to a golden lamp in the shape of a pineapple. 

Some boys disappeared before breakfast. 

Then I met Paul.

I have always had a big appetite in the morning. As does he.

Since he moved in we had to tone down our full Irish/English breakfast hybrids that got heavier week by week. 

I found frozen hash browns at the local Lidl, he made Irish potato pancakes from leftover mash. I started to buy packs of 12 sausages. He added allspice to German brand baked beans. Halloumi appeared in place of black pudding. I roasted pretty strings of cherry tomatoes, still on the vine. 

I am sure there is a saying that to love someone is to feed them.

We feed each other to excess. 

So we made a decision to cut out the ceremonial fries and switched to porridge with healthy toppings. 

Now, every morning he stews me a sweet apple and I eat it like a prayer.

Breakfast came with fanfare in the house I grew up in, especially on the weekends. I would wake to the sound of a single frying pan hitting the stove with a clang and my Father singing along to Barry White. He would pile everything into the heavy black skillet at once. The eggs would stick, the bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes would come out deliciously charred and the beans would boil to a clotted mass. Toast was frantically toasted in a mix of white, brown and whatever lay in the bread bin then spread haphazardly with crumb covered butter, piled on a wooden chopping board and slapped onto the table. While multiple cups of tea were being dashed with milk, my Father would thrust the skillet under the grill to finish the tops of the eggs. 

I didn’t realise until lately, when breakfast started to take the form of sweet stewed apples, that for my whole life breakfast has literally meant love. 

The silly quote I invented was not far off.

You can't tell a good man by his breakfast.

Rather, “A good man makes you breakfast.”

Artwork by Glenn Whiting @whitingglenn

From the moment I met him I knew we were going to fall in love. This is markedly different to love at first sight because love at first sight is non negotiable. But I was not ready to be in love so instead I reserved a place for him inside my heart and waited. It was 2010 and I was 23 years old. Looking back I’m not sure if I can truly label what transpired as love. At the time however, it was what I thought to be love. Perhaps you can already see cracks in the authenticity of the relationship through these opening sentences. I was a great orchestrator of my own sentimental disasters, a meticulous planner. It has taken me about 12 years to realize that love happens and cannot be invented. Nevertheless a few months down the line that reserved space in my heart became available and I, as promised, let him in. 

Vittorio. How I love to see his name written on my pages, even now. One of the privileges of being 35 is that you can say things like “12 years ago” and have the words lose the massive weight of that time with very little effort.

I believe the first introduction took place in an apartment he shared in London. I was at university studying film, he was studying economics and my friend Chiara lived with him. That night they were both writing essays and I had to stay with Chiara because we were driving somewhere early the next day to work on a short film. I remember the evening well; the dark wooden floors, Vittorio’s thick knitted jumper, the moment he offered his bedroom to me so I could watch a movie and then sitting in the living room reading a long boring magazine article so I could stay in the same room as him. An album by Leonard Cohen was playing as I silently decided that Vittorio and I would someday fall in love.

The second time we met was a few months later at a fancy dress party in Rome. I was dressed as Brigitte Bardot in “Le Mépris”, he was dressed as Barry Lyndon. We spent the night sitting outside the party, the entrance flagged with 2 large golden statues. Inside there was a banquet table and huge metal bowls of cherries hung from the ceiling. In the growing darkness we talked. I remember looking down at my Grandmother's shoes on my feet, the loose blue pencil skirt I wore and pulling my cardigan tightly around my striped t.shirt. He invited me to come with him that summer to his family's house in the countryside. I did not go.

He came to visit me at my apartment some months later in Greenwich London. I made pea and ham soup. Afterwards he texted me saying “Even while having this delicious cappuccino and triple chocolate muffin, all I wish is to be back in Westcombe Park having pea and ham soup with you.”

After that, our communication moved to Skype. He was living in New York working as a personal assistant to a famous Italian actress and I was working as a waitress in a bakery. I was still not prepared to be in love with him. But I continued to cultivate our relationship from afar. Skype was fun and easy to manipulate but the time difference was a challenge. I was always in bed dabbing lipstick onto my lips to look natural and trying to fix my hair.  Then he told me he loved me.

6 months later, I felt ready. He came to stay with me in Greenwich. I bought him a box of 12 cupcakes from the bakery I worked at, iced with “All I want for Christmas is you Vito”. The cakes were decorated with fawns and silver baubles. 

It was around this time that he told me I looked like Carole Lombard and I believed him. I used to dress like a 1940’s starlet. I was all into high waisted trousers and long camel coats, I used to wear bullet bras too.

We were sitting in the Dove at Broadway market. Vittorio pulled a card from a battered box of Trivial Pursuit and read it to me “Which Hollywood actress died in a plane crash in 1942?”

The correct answer was Carole Lombard and the area that I had kept for him inside my heart became full with wonder. 

In February, he sent me some plane tickets and I went to visit him in New York. The trip was a disaster. The overbearing memory is going to Coney Island when everything was shut down, cold, off season and out of time since it was February and I was leaving in a few days. This summed it all up. We were perpetually off season, at the wrong time.

He realized it before me. As soon as I arrived in New York. He kept telling me he had work to do and sent me out onto the streets alone in my long camel coat where I walked around, bought Lucky Charms, Hershey Bars and took photos on a pink disposable camera. On one of these outings, I was coming home and heard someone calling my name. I looked up to see Vittorio leaning out from the window of his apartment. He had pushed the window grate so hard it almost fell onto the street.

We had nothing substantial when it came down to it. I remember lying next to him beneath his “Bobby and Helen fell in love in Needle Park” poster, falling asleep unsatisfied, our noses pressed together in frustration. 

The funniest thing about it all is that afterwards I remember him telling me that when I arrived in New York, I was not the person he had fallen in love with. At the time I had blamed this on him but now I realize that although at times it was romantic, what he said was true. Love cannot be arranged or contrived. The whole thing was a set up, of my own hand. I was not Brigitte Bardot, nor did I resemble Carole Lombard. I was a waitress who did yet know what I really wanted and for all my high waisted trousers and white apron ribbons I should not have decided he was going to fall in love with me. 

There is a scene in ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ where two ex lovers are reunited accidentally at a gas station, decades later. You realize that the heroine has called her child her past lover's name. I used to watch that scene and think of Vittorio. I imagined us meeting once again at an airport and having a final moment in which we would say something prolific. There would be a parting word, a meaningful look, some reason for it all; a clear symbol of finality. But this will never come to be, no matter how hard I push my fantasies into being as big as cinema. All that will remain is the simple fact that I thought I loved him once. 

(Illustrated by Glenn Whiting)